The rotary internal combustion engine and cycle is superior in many ways to the conventional reciprocating piston-type engine. They possess fewer parts, are of low weight, simple in design, have superior breathing and therefore greater efficiency, have no valves and do not experience a reciprocating imbalance. Various designs of rotary internal combustion engines are known most of which comprise a rotor eccentrically mounted within a rotor chamber. In many, the rotor has a plurality of slots fitted with sliding vanes in order to create the working chambers of the engine as the rotor rotates within the rotor chamber. However, there are numerous shortcomings associated with the known art such as inadequate sealing between the working chambers of the engine leading to combustion gas leakage between working chambers of the engine, the premature retraction of the radially mounted members, complexity of design, inordinate frictional wear of component parts, and an inefficient conversion of chemical energy to mechanical energy.
One example of the known art is Canadian Letters Patent 1,248,029 entitled "Rotary Internal Combustion Engine" issued on Sep. 3, 1981 to Aase. The Aase patent discloses an engine which relies upon a very complex rotor design, comprising sliding cylinder sleeves within the rotor receiving members that define the working chambers of the engine. This design is very complex and hence may be very expensive to manufacture. Furthermore there are a large number of moving parts in the engine design all of which are subject to frictional wear. Finally, the size of the combustion chamber is limited and therefore the conversion of chemical fuel energy to mechanical rotational energy may be less than optimal.
The present invention seeks to overcome the disadvantages of known internal combustion rotary engines.